With participants in contact sports, such as football, hockey, and the like, becoming larger and faster, the potential for injury increases each year. In fact, it has been estimated that as many as ninety percent of all players in the National Football League will suffer some sort of injury that will require them to miss playing time each year.
Human joints, in particular the knee joint, were simply not designed for the sort of punishment it takes in such contact sports. The knee is the single most vulnerable area of an athlete's body, and the one area that is most feared in the event of injury.
Accordingly, there have been many proposals for body protectors. For example, such proposals have varied from a simple knee pad, such as is worn by wrestlers, to more complex devices which include energy absorbing balls, such as is disclosed in Britist Patent No. 5132 (1892), to cushion structures such as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,317,305, to still more complex devices that include shifting and moving elements, such as the equalizer device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,529,306.
Other impact-absorbing devices are also known, such as the helmets disclosed in patents, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,412,358, 4,343,047 and 3,877,076, as well as body padding, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,370,754 and 3,552,044.
However, while all of these devices are somewhat effective for low impact situations, they are seriously deficient in fully protecting a joint, such as a knee joint, in some high-impact situations that may occur in modern sports. Still further, there ma be some difficulty in manufacturing such devices, and they still may be overly cumbersome and not be as comfortable to wear as possible as is required for the athlete who is required to be extremely fast, quick and agile.
Still further, these devices do not re-distribute the impact force in an efficient manner from one portion of the wearer's body to another, stronger portion. These devices thus do not serve as efficient body supports.
Accordingly, there is need for a body protector that is easy to manufacture, comfortable to wear, yet protects the wearer's body in all situations which can range from slight impact to high energy impact, and can also serve as an efficient body support.